WiMax - don't believe the hype.
The latest wireless standard may have had a
boost, recently, but don't expect it to do much for a while.
The emerging WiMax mobile wireless standard is
gaining support among telecoms companies, but there is a risk of
it becoming over-hyped, say industry observers.
The fixed side of WiMax is well along the path to
commercialisation, but mobile WiMax will not be in wide use
until after 2009, according to forthcoming research from
Gartner. "It's very easy, given the huge amount of WiMax hype at
the moment, to see WiMax as the next big thing after 3G," said
Gartner analyst Ian Keene. "But that's not the case - it's a
fixed wireless solution, an alternative to DSL. Mobile WiMax is
a new cellular technology and it's got a heck of a long way to
go."
WiMax, based on the IEEE 802.16 group of
standards, is intended to replace two distinct types of wireless
broadband technology: fixed wireless - which could compete with
or supplement ADSL, cable and leased lines - and mobile
wireless, which makes broadband speeds available anywhere in a
coverage area, including moving vehicles or public places.
Mobile WiMax could complement 3G and Wi-Fi hotspots.
The standard is designed to make equipment less
expensive and more interoperable, which would improve the
business case for building networks. Equipment using the fixed
802.16d standard will arrive this year, and be certified next
year. A relatively easy upgrade will add on mobile 802.16e
capabilities, the WiMax Forum promises, but 802.16e equipment
will not be ready for another three years or so.
The WiMax Forum, the industry group promoting
WiMax, got a boost on Monday when telcos BT and France Telecom
became members, along with Qwest Communications, Reliance
Telecom and XO Communications. The official support of BT and
France Telecom will be valuable, since service providers are
necessarily WiMax's target customers, but both operators see
WiMax as a supplement to their existing wired networks,
according to industry analysts.
Operators who want mobile broadband are more
ambiguous in their attitudes to WiMax. Verizon, Sprint and
Nextel, for example, have all said they are interested in mobile
broadband but none are WiMax Forum members.
Since February, Nextel has been conducting trials
of a proprietary technology from Flarion in the south-eastern
United States, and the company emphasised that mobility is key
to its offering. "This is for customers who don't want to be
tied to their desk or their office. You can go anywhere and use
this service," said Nextel spokesman Chris Grandis. "It's beyond
3G."
Nextel also offers a wireless data card for
laptops, operating at dial-up speeds, and plans to use
Motorola's WiDEN technology to quadruple bandwidth, in the
second half of this year.
Sprint and Verizon are toying with high-speed
cellular technologies such as EV-DO while waiting to see if
anything promising emerges from WiMax efforts, but could just as
easily use proprietary equipment if it is more cost effective,
the companies have said. "We do keep an eye on WiMax as we do
all new technologies," said Sprint spokesman Charles
Fleckenstein. "If it makes business sense to move forward in
this area, Sprint will do so."
In Europe, where 3G rollouts are already well
advanced, wireless operators such as Vodafone and T-Mobile have
even less incentive to jump on board a mobile technology that is
years away, said IDC analyst Jan Hein Bakkers. "We don't think
there will be any standardised [mobile WiMax] products before
2007," he said. "By that time there will be a lot of Wi-Fi
hotspots out there already, and operators will have more UMTS [a
3G standard] networks. I don't see WiMax bringing that much
additional value."
Others predicted more service providers will get
on board the WiMax bandwagon, but agreed that it is still
unclear what role WiMax will play. "It's a very new technology,
and operators are not absolutely certain where it fits in with
the other parts of the jigsaw puzzle, vis-a-vis 3G, Wi-Fi
hotspots and so on," said Infonetics analyst Richard Webb.
Fixed WiMax has a more immediate potential for
success, say analysts, because it will provide services similar
to existing wireless broadband, while introducing lower costs
and equipment interoperability.
Small wireless ISPs such as Irish Broadband in
Dublin, NextWeb in California and TowerStream on the US' East
coast are offering wireless services that compete with existing
wired offerings. A survey published this week by ABI Research
found that more than half of small wireless ISPs planned to
deploy WiMax equipment as soon as it is available, in order to
lower equipment costs.
Larger Western European telcos primarily want
WiMax to fill in the gaps in their wired networks, the companies
say. BT recently said it would use a combination of ADSL and a
WiMax-like system from Alvarion to provide broadband across 100
percent of Northern Ireland. BT has said it is interested in
migrating to WiMax-standard gear.
Some analysts see this as a shrinking niche. BT
announced this week it will enable another 1,128 ADSL exchanges
by mid-2005, which it claims will give broadband access to 99.6
percent of UK businesses and households. France Telecom's ADSL
will reach 90 percent of businesses and households this year,
according to IDC.
Across Western Europe, about 83 percent of
consumers and businesses had access to broadband last year, and
in the next two years or so that will rise to 90 to 95 percent,
according to IDC's Bakkers. "In Western Europe, the role of
WiMax will be limited," he said.
WiMax is expected to come fully into its own in
areas where networks are not as fully built-out as in Western
Europe and the US - areas as nearby as Eastern Europe.
"Regardless of which vendor comes out on top, it is the millions
of people in rural and developing markets who stand to gain the
most from WiMax," said Pyramid Research analyst John Yunker in a
recent report.
